I Know What Love Is
by Jaenelle Angelline
Summary: Elisa is sick, and Goliath takes the moment of quiet to reflect on their unusual relationship. FINISHED. Read, review, please! All feedback is welcome!


**Author's Note:** This isn't the first Gargoyles fanfic I've written, though it is the first one I've chosen to post here for others to read. I was listening to my CDs last night, and this song suggested itself to a songfic written about my two favorite 'Gargoyles' characters, Goliath and Elisa. I just took a short (three hour) break from writing my usual X-Men fanfics today to jot this short story down. Some romantic fluff, nothing serious. I don't know how many people reading this also like X-Men, so let me just say if you like this, I have a few X-Men fanfics also posted at this site in the Comics: X-Men category. If you like the writing, take a look! Feedback is ALWAYS appreciated, good or bad! And the song titled 'I Know What Love Is' sung by Celine Dion, which you can find on her 'One Heart' CD. Enjoy the story!—Jaenelle Angelline

I Know What Love Is

The last rays of sunlight winked out over the horizon, plunging the castle perched atop the skyscraper into deep shadow. For a moment, all was quiet…

Then suddenly cracks appeared on the surface of the massive stone gargoyle crouched kneeling atop the ramparts of the highest tower. They ran like lightning all over the surface of the hulking form, until with a roar, the stone shattered, falling away as the Gargoyle came to life, wings and arms reaching for the sky, a prodigious yawn almost splitting the craggy lavender face of the Gargoyle in half.

Goliath yawned again, snapping his wings open to shake the last of the stone shards off, then, running his hand through his thick dark mane of hair, he turned to look behind him.

She wasn't there.

And, as he'd done so often before, he forced himself not to panic. Though Elisa was normally there when he woke, there were times when she wasn't, when she couldn't because she was working, and it didn't always mean that something terrible had happened to her while he slept. That was just his natural protectiveness rearing its head.

A whoosh of air and a flap of wings caught his attention, and Brooklyn, Lexington, Angela, and Broadway landed in front of him. "Elisa isn't here?" Broadway frowned.

"She may be working." Goliath said placatingly.

"No, she isn't." Angela insisted. "Elisa said this was her night off and she would meet us here tonight. We were going to visit Talon and his clan in the Labyrinth."

Goliath frowned. If Elisa had said she would meet them here, she would have. She wasn't the kind of person who normally broke her promises.

"Perhaps she is simply late," Goliath said, leading the way down into the castle, where Hudson was already sitting in front of the television with Bronx. Picking up one of the tiny transmitters that Elisa had managed to secure for them, he draped the speaker on its cord around his neck, and slipped the earpiece into his ear. "I'll check her apartment."

The flight from the castle to her apartment would be a short one if he'd flown straight, but he kept following the roads, searching for any sign of her car. It was lucky for them that Elisa had a liking for old cars; her Ford Fairlane was an easy one to spot among the masses of newer-model automobiles that clogged New York City's streets. It was with some relief that he finally spotted her car parked in her building's parking lot. While it was possible that she hadn't driven her car to work due to mechanical malfunction, the car's presence here usually meant she was at home.

He alighted on the ledge outside her skylight, taking a moment as he usually did, to check the surroundings. No one. He sighed in relief, and folded his wings, locking the vestigial talons across his chest. With the Quarrymen now an active (if a minority) force in New York, he worried about her here. She was so fragile, vulnerable here if someone should try to hurt her…

Pushing aside those unwelcome thoughts, he turned to the skylight. The apartment under him was dark; except for the winking of a red LED digital clock sitting on a table. His dark-adjusted eyes picked out the shape of her furnishings; couch, table, kitchen appliances and TV, everything was where it should have been. Nothing was out of place.

He tried the skylight, and found it unlocked. Shaking his head, he pushed it open. He'd told Elisa several times not to leave her skylight unlocked; it was a potential entry point for intruders. She'd insisted, with equal firmness and annoyingly logical reasoning, that if she locked it she'd be locking them out too. And if the Quarrymen were really determined to get in through her skylight, a lock wouldn't stop them, just like a lock wouldn't stop the Clan. One blow from a Quarryman's hammer or a Gargoyle fist would shatter the glass easily, and she would just as soon not have to pay for the broken window if she didn't have to, thank you very much! Unable to fault her logic, Goliath had settled for just the occasional remark about her security.

He closed the skylight carefully, quietly behind him, locking it (of course!) before turning toward the large main room. As usual, though he tried to remain silent, Cagney heard him and came meowing up to be petted. Elisa's cat had at first been wary and distrustful of the Clan, but as time went on and he found that Brooklyn, Lexington, Angela, and especially Broadway would feed him scraps, he'd become friendlier. Elisa had firmly banned the feeding of table scraps to the cat, claiming that he would get fat if they kept indulging him, but Goliath knew the younger members of his Clan still fed the cat anyway, when Elisa wasn't looking. And when Avalon had sent them on that crazy world tour, Elisa had been relieved to find that he'd been cared for in her absence.

He took a sniff of the air. There were the usual odors; Cagney's litter box, the trashcan in the kitchen, the usual smell of cleaners and disinfectant and, over everything, the scent of the perfume she favored. There was also the smell of something warm, that smelled like chicken soup on the stove. And when he stood up from petting the cat and Cagney stopped purring, he heard the soft, whispering sound of her breathing. Navigating the main room of her apartment in the dark was easy, to eyes that had evolved to function exclusively at night, and he quietly poked his head around the half-open door of her bedroom.

There was some moonlight coming from the window by her bed, and in its light he saw her lying in bed, her dark hair lying long and loose across her pillow. Her eyes were closed, and she was breathing evenly.

At the sight of her asleep all of his worries evaporated. "I've found Elisa," he said to the rest of the Clan via the small mike and transmitter. "She's asleep."

"Well, don't wake her, she's probably tired," Angela said. "We'll go on down to the Labyrinth and let Talon know she's asleep. She can see him tomorrow morning on her way into work."

She looked so peaceful sleeping there, moonlight turning her honey-and-cinnamon skin silver, that he hadn't the heart to wake her. He started to tiptoe out of the room when suddenly the clock radio beside her bed started playing music, and that woke her up.

Her eyelids fluttered sleepily, and one hand fought its way out from under the tangled sheet and picked up the clock. She sat bolt upright as her sleep-fogged mind took in the time. "Oh my gosh, I was supposed to…I'm late…they're probably worried…" She threw the sheet off, and he saw that she had fallen asleep with her jeans and t-shirt on. She tried to stand, took a deep breath…then almost doubled over coughing.

"Elisa," Goliath said softly, stepping out from the shadows beside the door. "It is all right. I have told the Clan that I found you; Angela asked that I not wake you. Go back to sleep."

"Hey, Big Guy," Elisa smiled as he crossed the bedroom and sat on the floor beside her bed. It was low to the floor, and so she could sit there and look into his face without his having to bend or her having to look up. It was one of the things that surprised her; that the way she liked things had been so perfectly suited to her friends' needs. "I'm sorry I wasn't there; I came back in from work late, and I wanted to take a quick shower and a short nap before heading out to see you guys. I guess I overslept," she said ruefully, glancing at the clock and rubbing her red-rimmed eyes.

Goliath smiled at her comment, then looked closely at her eyes. "Your eyes are red," he observed, frowning. "How much sleep have you gotten in the last day or so?"

"Enough," she lied, and then grinned sheepishly at Goliath's stern look, "Well, half the department's come down with the flu bug, and Matt and I have been pulling double shifts trying to keep things going."

She lay back on the pillow, rubbing her eyes again, then reached back over to her bedside table and grabbed a tissue, blowing her nose into it. This set off a short spate of coughing, and Goliath listened to her cough for a moment before deciding, "You are ill."

"I'm not," (cough) "sick," (cough) "I can't be!" she finished off her sentence by blowing her nose again, and lay back in bed, looking decidedly horrified. "I had my flu shot!"

Goliath raised an eyebrow. The idea that having a needle full of foreign liquids injected into various parts of the human anatomy had been a difficult concept for the Clan to grasp at first; he still wasn't sure that it worked, despite Elisa's insistence. And it looked like, at least in this instance, that he was correct.

Her room was slightly chilly; he hadn't noticed until he saw her skin pebble up slightly. Gargoyles weren't bothered by the cold, or any other temperature change; however, Elisa was human and could be affected by the slightest climate alteration. It never ceased to amaze him how someone so much smaller and physically weaker could be so resilient and adaptable, but there were times when the difference between them was driven home to him forcibly, and this was one of them.

He rose from his sitting position and picked up her comforter from the floor, where it had fallen, and draped it back over her bed, more or less neatly. Elisa sat up to arrange the blanket, which triggered another fit of coughing, which triggered…

She clamped a hand over her mouth, then flew out of bed and ran for her bathroom, her face turning an alarming shade of pink as she ran. Goliath reached the bathroom door a scant few seconds after she entered it, and switched on the light as she bent over the toilet, retching violently. He flinched at the sound, wrinkled his nose at the smell, then stepped into her bathroom and took her heaving shoulders, guiding her to a sitting position on the cool tile before she fell over. Her skin was hot and dry while she emptied her stomach into the bowl, but when she finally finished and flushed, she was sweating slightly, though she still shivered as if she were cold.

Goliath scooped her up in his arms as if she weighed no more than a child, feeling the heavy cotton of her jeans rubbing against his arm. "You shouldn't be sleeping with your clothes on," he scolded her gently. "And if I am correct, that was chicken soup I smelled on your stove. After emptying your stomach you need to eat; I will heat it again while you change into something more comfortable." He put her down on her bed and strode out of her bedroom, giving her no time to argue or protest.

He heated the chicken soup, poured it into a bowl he took from her cabinet, and returned to her bedroom with it. And, wonder of wonders, not only had she not protested, she had actually done as he suggested; she'd changed into long pajama bottoms and a camisole top, and was lying in bed.

He grinned; it wasn't often that he got to fuss over her. Elisa, for all her human frailty, was surprisingly independent, and she tended to resent anything or anyone that tried to infringe on that independence. But, as he'd learned a long time ago, no one person, or even one clan, was an island; everyone needed someone. And right now, she needed him. He'd informed the rest of the clan, while he was in the kitchen, that Elisa was ill, and he would be caring for her that evening; they wouldn't be expecting him back anytime soon.

He fussed over her happily, pushing an extra pillow behind her back, propping her up so that she could eat the soup he'd heated for her. There had been a package of salted crackers on the kitchen counter beside the soup; he'd brought that too, and was gratified to see that his guess had been correct; she ate the crackers along with the soup. By the time she finished, her eyelids were growing heavy again, and he took the extra pillow out from behind her back, returned the dishes to the kitchen sink, and turned out the light. She was already half-asleep as she sat down beside her bed again, but her hand crept out, almost unconsciously, and found his. He took her hand, so tiny in his big one, and held it gently. He didn't get to fuss over her often; she wouldn't put up with it too often. But it was nice to know that she too knew that sometimes even she needed to be taken care of.

The only sound that broke the silence of the apartment was the sound of the radio playing softly; Goliath knew it was a habit of Elisa's. Sometimes when she couldn't sleep she would leave the radio on. There were some forms of human music he couldn't stand, and he'd been gratified to find out that she didn't like those same kinds.

The radio started playing a soft gentle strain, and after a moment, a female voice started singing. For lack of anything better to do, Goliath listened.

_I was forgotten_

_Until you called my name_

_Lost in the shadows_

_Until you shined your light my way_

Unbidden, his mind flashed back to the very first time he'd seen her; a small, dark figure in a red jacket, holding a flashlight in front of her to light her way through the darkened castle, determinedly unafraid, though he'd heard her breathing hitch when Bronx had run by the room she had been in. He and his clan had been forgotten, lost for a thousand years in stone obscurity, until Xanatos had woken them, and Elisa had showed them how this strange new world worked.

_Now I believe again _

_In all my dreams again _

Well, he did. Long ago, he'd dreamed of humans and gargoyles living together, peacefully. What they'd had was an uneasy peace, but peace nonetheless…until his then-angel of the night, Demona, had caused the clan's downfall though an act of betrayal that had ultimately led the remnants of the Clan here, to Manhattan. And Elisa's acceptance of them, her willingness to open her life, her work, her time, and her heart to them had led him to believe, once again, that perhaps peace between humans and Gargoyles could be possible. The presence of the Quarrymen, while disturbing, hadn't changed that hope, that dream, that possibility.

_I'm wide-eyed and innocent_

_Those doubting days are so far away…_

He—and his whole clan—had stared out at Manhattan with wide-eyed innocence, astonished, amazed, and intrigued by this new world. The night right after the betrayal, when his clan had been frozen and he had been left, staring helplessly at their stone-by-night forms, he had seriously doubted that he would ever see anyone of them again; the spell had been quite specific in its terms, and he had never dreamed that Castle Wyvern would one day be able to 'rise above the clouds'. With life came renewed hope, and bringing that hope was Elisa, helping them, guiding them, showing them this new world of hers, its good and bad sides. She'd been a true friend to the clan, but for Goliath, she was something more, something deeper, than a friend.

Elisa lay on her bed, drifting in a warm fog. She really was sick; she'd been fighting it for the last few days, pretending it was a cold, taking cold medicines, fiercely hoping that if she believed hard enough that it was just a cold, it would remain just a cold. But the retching had convinced her finally that wishful thinking wasn't doing her any good; she did have the flu, and she would have to cope. _Just please, God, don't let me throw up in front of Goliath again, _she whispered in the darkness of her mind_. With that sensitive nose of his the stink must have been overwhelming. _But he hadn't backed away in disgust; he'd held her, carried her, fussed over her, fixed her soup, and now was sitting beside her bed, watching her sleep. In that half-awake, half-asleep doze, the words of the music penetrated her mind.

_I will fall_

_And you will catch me always_

_Time has shown me this_

Oh, indeed. How many times had she fallen from a height, and he'd been there to catch her, to rescue her? Since that first night in Castle Wyvern, when she'd backed away from him in fear and horror and he had rescued her from a fall that would have killed her, how many times had he caught her? She'd seen his disgust at her fear, and yet he'd dived over the ramparts to catch her. And that everlastingly long climb back up…she'd lost her fear of him on that climb up, and even managed to smile when he'd made a sarcastic comment about her not falling over again after he asked her again why she was trespassing. At that moment, at the all-too-human humor coming from a very inhuman-like creature, she'd somehow ceased to see him as 'Other', as alien, as foreign. He was just…Goliath. _My Goliath_, her mind corrected fuzzily.

_I will fly_

_And you'll be there to guide me_

_Straight up to my heart's highest wish_

When she was younger she'd wished she could fly. She'd invented and played a game of dragons with Beth and Derek that involved a lot of jumping out of trees and moving swings, and once, off the roof of the garage. She was the big sister; they did what she did…and Beth had dislocated an arm. Her mother had forbidden them to try that particular stunt again, tartly proclaiming that something as big as a dragon would spend most of its time on the ground because the effort involved in getting its massive bulk off the ground would be enormous. The young Elisa hadn't been able to figure that one out; if you had wings, wouldn't you want to spend your time flying? Even learning the laws of physics in high school hadn't cured her of wanting to fly; she'd dreamed of it as the ultimate experience.

And then Puck's spell had changed her into a Gargoyle, and for that brief, wonderful time she and Goliath had soared together into the starlit-sky, he guiding her. And she had dared to hope that maybe…she'd been fully resigned, in her heart, to not being human anymore; it would be a change, but to be able to fly with Goliath, to ride the winds and the sky with him every night, and maybe even…But the spell had been undone, it had to, because everything was just wrong, and for one brief instant Goliath had been earthbound, human, and she had entertained wild hopes, fantasies…

_I feel you close to me_

_And I know what love is…_

She wasn't a virgin; she'd had dates, boyfriends, other men in her life before. Some serious, some not, some guys who had been only a casual flirtation with no promise of commitment. But Goliath…Goliath was different. He loved her, cared for her, protected her...to the extent she allowed him to. Protectiveness was an integral part of who he was, what he was; he could no more help that than he could help turning to stone at sunrise. And she'd never been the kind to want to be protected, cosseted, fussed over. She'd held onto her independence, going her own way, doing what she wanted to do, and her mother had sighed and fussed over Beth instead. It took an incredible amount of self-control for Goliath to let her go her own way when his protective instincts were that strong, but he recognized her desire for independence and had somehow found a balance between wanting to protect her and having to respect her wishes. And the times she'd really needed his help, he'd been there. It was true love; it had to be. Not a romantic sort of love, but something deeper.

Okay, she was fooling herself. How many times had she lain awake in bed aching, after another dream of him, holding her, touching her…but it couldn't be, she knew that, and he knew that, and somehow it didn't make a single bit of difference to either one of them. She was willing to take whatever he was willing to give, and he was similarly willing…_and besides_, she smiled wryly to herself, lips twitching involuntarily, _we've been too busy dodging Quarrymen and fighting with Xanatos and going wherever Avalon sent us to even think of doing anything…and there's always the clan to consider. And physical differences. And responsibilities…_She sighed as she drifted off into sleep.

Goliath saw the twitch of her lips, the soft, gentle smile, and then the sigh, and wondered what she was dreaming about. Her hand lay in his, limp and trusting, and his own sizable talons curled around her hand protectively. Humans and Gargoyles were similar in that they were vulnerable while sleeping. He trusted Elisa to watch over them while they were sleeping, in the beginning because he didn't have a choice; later, because he knew she could be trusted. But she…she had welcomed them into her world, her life, her home, her heart without a backward glance, and trusted them wholeheartedly, unreservedly. Trust was a precious thing between Clan members, and he perhaps placed more store in it than most, having had it betrayed several times, disastrously. Right before the Magus had cast the spell that sent him to join the remnants of his clan in stone, he'd doubted himself, doubted that he really was the leader he'd thought himself to be.

_Now I believe in me_

'_Cause you live and breathe in me_

_And nothing can come between_

_We are one star_

_No night can darken_

It was true. She lived in him, in his heart; he didn't feel that all was 'right' every night when he woke until he'd heard her voice or seen her in person. She was a part of his Clan in every way that mattered; regardless of her lack of wings and talons. And he couldn't imagine life without her any longer. Without Elisa beside him, life seemed empty. When Owen had brought news that she was in the hospital with a gunshot wound fighting for her life, the ground had dropped out of his world, and hadn't come back until he had seen her in the hospital. And in the days that followed, as she limped about on crutches while her too-frail human body had recovered, he'd come to realize just how much she'd meant to him, and to the Clan. Xanatos might have brought them out of their stone sleep, but it was Elisa who had truly awakened them…

_I will fall_

_And you will catch me always_

_Time has taught me this_

They'd been lost, adrift, falling into a well of hopelessness because they didn't have a purpose, didn't have anything to protect. Elisa had rescued them, showing them her purpose as a protector for this massive city of humans, and her purpose had become theirs.

_I will fly_

_And you'll be there to guide me_

_Straight up to my heart's highest wish_

_I feel you close to me_

_And I know what love is_

It had taken him a long time to admit that it had been Elisa who had shown him what love was. Even though he'd been in love with Demona, he'd never felt for her even half of what he felt for Elisa. He and Demona had loved; loved enough to give him Angela, the future of his clan. Although he knew he had many long years ahead of him, he knew with a bone-deep certainty that he would never love anyone like he loved Elisa. It was a romantic love; there were times when he was carrying her, gliding through the night and feeling her body nestled against his, that he wondered just how incompatible their physiologies really were…but it was also something else, something beyond the physical, that was nothing he would ever be able to explain.

_It's an unspoken thing_

_A quiet opening_

_There are no words that go that deep_

_But I know_

Yes, he knew. He knew now. When Demona had resurfaced, brought to Castle Wyvern by Xanatos, a part of him had already known that whatever they had was gone. After that first moment of meeting, of seeing each other again after so many years, their differences had been glaringly apparent. They had grown apart; Goliath had become aware of a whole new world thanks to Elisa, but Demona had become too jaded, too bitter, to see the possibilities. He'd pursued her not out of love, but out of responsibility; his clan would need new hatchlings if they were to remain viable. Then they had gone to Avalon, and he had brought Angela back; and in the process he'd found that they were not the last Gargoyles left in the world, that other clans had survived throughout the world and flourished. And that had convinced him that responsibility to the clan be damned, he also had a responsibility to his heart, and his heart belonged to this cinnamon-skinned human with a fiercely independent spirit who needed him as much as he needed her. It was a completely unique experience; never in all of Gargoyle history had anything like it happened…but here they were.

The earpiece in his ear crackled, and a quiet female voice said, "Father…"

He gently disengaged his hand from Elisa's, albeit reluctantly. He would have liked to stay here and watch her while she slept, but duty called. "Yes Angela," he said, keeping his voice low.

"Broadway ran across a major arms deal going down in Central Park," she said. "It's big. We're going to need your help, if you can come…"

For one awful moment, he was tempted to say no, he wouldn't leave Elisa…but the clan, and the Manhattan goings-on, were his responsibility too. If Elisa found out (and she would!) she'd have it out with him about dereliction of duty. He put aside his personal wishes as he rose from where he sat. "I shall be there in five minutes," he said into the microphone, then leaned over Elisa's bed, brushing her forehead with his lips. It was a gesture of affection Gargoyles had learned from humans long ago, and they had done it because it seemed intimate. Goliath hadn't known just how pleasurable this 'kissing' could be until that first time when Elisa had boldly, daringly, planted her lips over his, and he felt the incredible softness of her lips on his. Since then they had kissed a few times, but he'd never get over the wonder of that feeling. Female gargoyles' lips and skin was never this soft and sensitive. Well, maybe right after hatching, but after the first year of stone sleep the softness toughened.

"Sleep well, Elisa. I'll stop by before dawn." She mumbled something in her sleep that sounded suspiciously like his name, smiled dreamily, then snuggled deeper into her pillow. He tugged the blanket up around her bare shoulders, petted Cagney one last time, then left her bedroom, closing the door. Out the skylight he went, and he paused a moment on the ledge, breathing in the cold winter night air before unfurling his wings with a snap, flexing them. With one last look behind him at the dark, quiet apartment, he leapt off the ledge, gliding outward over the city. Central Park wasn't far, and soon he saw the gliding forms of the rest of the clan in the sky in front of him. The usual faces, in the usual places...except one. His arms felt curiously empty without Elisa, but she was sick, and she didn't need to be here. The rest of the Clan felt into an attack formation behind him, carefully designed to give each other plenty of flying and attack room but not far enough apart to present an individual target. Stone sleep healed them, but wounds could still be a nuisance if they were deep enough to require several sleep periods.

He folded his wings in close to his body, aiming downward toward that patch of grass currently playing host to two well-known crime factions in the city.

_I will fly…_


End file.
